Quotation of the Week: M.E. Bradford on Equality

Let us have no foolishness indeed. Equality as a moral or political imperative, pursued as an end in itself -- Equality, with the capital "E" -- is the antonym of every legitimate conservative principle. Contrary to most Liberals, new and old, it is nothing less than sophistry to distinguish between equality of opportunity (equal starts in the "race of life") and equality of condition (equal results). For only those who are equal can take equal advantage of a given circumstance. And there is no man equal to any other, except perhaps in the special, and politically untranslatable, understanding of the Deity. Not intellectually or physically or economically or even morally. Not equal! Such is, of course, the genuinelly self-evident proposition. Its truth finds a verification in our bones and is demonstrated in the unselfconscious acts of our everyday lives: vital proof, regardless of our private political persuasion. Incidental equality, engendered by the pursuit of our other objectives, is, to be sure, another matter. Inside the general history of the West (and especially within the American experience) it can be credited with a number of healthy consequences: strength in the bonds of community, assent to the authority of honorable regimes, faith in the justice of the gods.

But the equality of Professor Jaffa's essay, even in the ordinary sense of "equal right", can be expected to work the other way around. For this equality belongs to the post-Renaissance world of ideology-- of political magic and the alchemical "science" of politics. Envy is the basis of its broad appeal. And rampant envy, the besetting virus of modern society, is the most predictable result of insistence upon its realization. Furthermore, hue and cry over equality of opportunity and equal rights leads, a fortiori, to a final demand for equality of condition. Under its pressure self-respect gives way in the large majority of men who have not reached the level of their expectationk, who have no support from an inclusive identity, and who hunger for "revenge" on those who occupy a higher station and whill (they expect) continue to enjoy that advantage. The end result is visible in the spiritual proletarians of the "lonely crowd". Bertand de Jouvenel has described the process which produces such non-persons in his memorable study, On Power. They are the natural pawns of an impersonal and omnicopetent Leviathan. And to insure their docility such a state is certain to recruit a large "new class" of men, persons superior in "ability" and authority, both to their ostensible "masters" among the people and to such anachronisms as stand in their progressive way.

~~M. E. Bradford. "The heresy of Equality : a reply to Harry Jaffa" in his collection, A better guide than Reason. New Brunswick : Transaction Publishers, 1994. (p. 29-30)